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Just a parenthetic comment - I've never understood why it's 'wrong' to revisit an old thread. Maybe someone has new information, or a conversation can be restarted. So what if the original poster/questioner is gone, dead or in silent retreat in a monastery0--if the topic is interesting, people will start talking about it again.

And in this case, there is something 'new' - I've also seen sites selling exotic wood dowels. Unfortunately, nothing all that long. Has anyone seen a site selling nine or ten feet long dowels of hardwood?

Ellis Amdur

My bad.
FWIW Hickory might make a good jo but the hockey stick industry beat the heck out of hickory supplies quite a while ago.

[quote=John Hillson;348268] I have bought the $100 Purple Heart and it was kindling in minutes; never again.

Dang, what were you training against? I have a purple heart (1-1/8 inch diameter) and it was withstood the test of time against oak, ipe, hickory, other purple heart, and even the maple tree in my front yard.

I have bought the $100 Purple Heart and it was kindling in minutes; never again.

Dang, what were you training against? I have a purple heart (1-1/8 inch diameter) and it was withstood the test of time against oak, ipe, hickory, other purple heart, and even the maple tree in my front yard.

Perhaps most accurate to say he took my money and he said, "this is Purple Heart." I found it very light in my hands and it just seemed to have no flex. I did nothing crazy with it, just basic paired practice.

For the wood workers, my jo that lasted the longest but has inferior wood has a bigger diameter than standard and that feels nice in my hands. Shorter also seems more durable.

While the emerald ash borer is a very serious threat to the White Ash that is commonly used to make wooden bats, there is still plentiful ash (for now). Major League baseball players use sugar maple (hard maple) because they believe the bats give them better results (not easily proved). Hard maple is harder but heavier and so to achieve the same bat weight (generally 32oz to 34oz) - the bat is thinner and so subject to breaks more often than a thicker ash bat of the same weight [unscientific explanation].